Terminal Man (1974)

TERMINAL MAN

Read that poster to the left... it says: 

"Harry is a Brilliant Computer Scientist..." (but that has nothing to do with this story whatsoever...)  "For three minutes a day he is violently homicidal..." (For three minutes in the movie, he is violently homicidal, the other 115 minutes is a complete boring nothing...)

George Segal stars as an unusual 'killer,' in this rather slow movie which has me wondering if it is anything at all like the book by Michael Crichton. The set-up is interesting, and leads nowhere--but instead of 'leads nowhere fast,' it leads nowhere very very slowly. The cinematography is interesting, and I was really expecting something else as the movie progresses. This movie has problems. The ideas are very interesting, which has me intrigued if the book went further, or if the writer/director, Mike Hodges even read the book, but since I know neither--I cannot say. I am trying to figure out exactly how to explain what went wrong. The cinematographer Richard Kline (Andromeda Strain, Star Trek the Motion Picture) was probably the best thing this movie had going for it. It's really almost the only thing to talk about. There's plenty of interesting shots, but I think they lead the viewer to believe that this is all building to something, but it doesn't. What took an hour and a half should have probably taken 10 minutes...and then you've got 15 minutes of something that is supposed to be the climax, but has very little impact because what you think is the set-up, is not setting up anything at all, it's as if you're watching the last reel of some other movie. 

I have no idea what this writer/director was thinking, or if he was thinking at all, but there's all sorts of interesting things in the beginning which you absolutely believe will lead to something but don't, and they really have no business being there at all.

George Segal is obsessed with computers and believes that machines will one day take over the world. We are told this, and he sees a computer in the Hospital that makes him a little nervous. He's some kind of peculiar murderer with some kind of condition, and he's going in for experimental surgery, to have a computer chip implanted in his brain, which we are told will possibly help him, or stop him from these murderous fits that he has. Segal's obsession with artifical intelligence? Means nothing to the story, doesn't even get referred to again in any way, neither do computers. Does this film "degenerate into a mindless action thriller" and lose sight of it's scientific ideas? No, it just becomes a rather boring nothing, where he predictably escapes after an hour and a half (after a 30 minute brain surgery which is pretty tedious and a half hour of set-up and introducing characters), then kills his girlfriend, does nothing, ends up at his doctor's house, runs, and then dies in a recently dug grave. I spoil it for you to save you the trouble of literally sitting there for an hour and a half expecting a good movie to happen, but it never arrives. 

The thing is that if this movie had been given to David Cronenberg, or somebody with talent, this could have been unforgettable. There's a great story here, with potential for some powerful atmosphere and opportunities to say a lot about a lot of things; science, technology, society, the mind, life, death, but it's all left to drive absolutely nowhere, and as the movie ends, you're left expecting another hour to give you something, but nope.  The music is probably the worst choice in movie music one could have ever decided upon, slow, mindless, boring piano music that puts you to sleep. It has no connection to anything that's going on at all. The atmosphere created by the cinematographer does not align with the music or vice-vera, the photography suggests something more Cronenberg, and there might as well be no music at all. I don't want to be smarmy about this, but it would seem the director and the editor got together and took quaaludes before the editing sessions and thought it was pretty exciting to throw in some random, slow tinkling piano in the background. 

Michael Crichton wrote a lot of interesting stuff, and this might have been better if they had worked a little harder at the script. Watching a brain surgery simply won't do, and it is filmed completely without any drama at all, no atmosphere, nothing, you're sitting there watching every boring detail of this surgery as if you were sitting there in the room. Brain surgery with piano music is not only not very exciting, it all goes well without a hitch, no drama here to speak of, and spends way too much time of the film for no reason. Close the doors, and cut to the end of surgery because nothing happens there, and it simply doesn't matter to the story.  The only really interesting scene is when they're pressing buttons to see what happens when his brain is stimulated by the implant, they go through like 15 different levels where Segal experiences a different sensation. After that there is a pointless scene at a party, though more fascinating cinematography occurs, again, nothing happens. There is a lot of nothing happening in this hour and forty-five minute film, when so much could have and should have happened.  I really assumed that since they're bringing up all these things like "he's afraid computers will take over the world, and that might make him even crazier to put an implant in him!" Or, "this is a human being, not an animal you're experimenting on." I assumed since he knew a lot about computers that he would end up using them when he escapes, or do something bizarre after he escapes and hook his electrodes up to one with his brain, or that he'd freak out and run around telling everyone that computers took over his brain, or perhaps it would turn out the computers were taking over the world, anything at all! He freaks and stabs his girlfriend to death, and I figured maybe he'd go on a killing spree, perhaps steal a car, have a police shootout, maybe fall in love with his female doctor where they'd talk about how the computer chip has fucked up his mind, or ANYTHING AT ALL! Nope. Nothing. Just a boring series of nothing happening with some interesting photography that is the only thing keeping you interested. I almost feel cheated by the time spent. What a waste, not of my time, but of film and resources, because anyone with any creativity could have seen the potential of this. 

I cannot recommend this film for any reason at all. The idea of implanting a mind controlling computer chip is all for naught, they do nothing but show you all the anticipation of doing it, the surgery-implantation, and then you wait for the consequences, and they are more boring and mindless than the previous hour and a half. Nothing else is explored, and the process, while somewhat well photographed is nothing even remotely approaching an art film, but more like a TV movie with a rogue and renegade cinematographer who nobody is paying any attention to, and when they get to the editing room, they're like, "What the fuck is this shit? What do we do with THIS?"  

It's depressing really, I am hoping they remake this film, for the ideas they infer in it are fascinating, and somebody should really go back and see what the hell else is in the book to see if it's worth a reboot. Throw a little more excitement into it, or at least give it to Cronenberg, because it is exactly the kind of material he could work his magic with. I think the director of this film has very little understanding of humanity, and even though it appears this might have been one of his dream projects, I really don't know, he was not the right man for this job at all.  If I was a half-witted pissy critic, I'd have said, "watching this movie was like a slow boring terminal illness, and you just can't wait to die for it all to end," but I'd much rather say that whatever the original material was, I almost find it difficult to believe that the director had any idea of what to do with it, perhaps his job was to bury it, and terminate any likelihood of such a story from being put on screen in any comprehensible way for the public because the ideas here from Michael Crichton, all the way back from 1974, were far ahead of their time, and are now very relevant. This movie dissolves all the relevance like concentrated bleach, slowly eating away any sense it might have had... dissolving its very own ideas ...through this long boring exercise.  

This movie is indeed a failure but I think one that should be revisited, the Clonus Horror had a better story, better pacing, and more excitement and sense than this movie, and probably cost half as much to make, and was made by people who had less resources connections and shittier cameras. Michael Bay remade Clonus Horror, starring Ewan MacGregor and Scarlett Johanssen, and took Clonus Horror a little further, and though it could be argued it wasn't necessary, it did re-introduce the ideas of Clonus Horror and on top of that it was actually an illegally plagiraized work, it actually remained faithful to the original story and important ideas in it.  I'd very much like to see someone take Terminal Man the same direction, and they'd only have to give it half the energy of Michael Bay, and you'd have a great movie out of this.